PLANET OF THE AGED“Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.” —Jonathan Swift

Gray is the new color of the world population. Today the globe is home to 2 billion people over the age of 60, a group growing five times as quickly as the population as a whole. Five nations contain more than 50 million of these elders: China (440 million), India (316 million), the United States (111 million), Indonesia (72 million), and Brazil (64 million). The aging demographic combined with declining fertility rates—especially in industrial countries—has sent medical costs skyrocketing while economies sputter. The race to attract young immigrant workers, including caregivers for the elderly, is on.

GERMANY

Population

2012: 82,302,000

2062: 72,371,000

Life Expectancy

2012: 80.6

2062: 86.5

Elderly (Over Age 65) as Percent of Population

2012: 20.5

2062: 30.1

ITALY

Population

2012: 60,551,000

2062: 57,399,000

Life Expectancy

2012: 82

2062: 87.2

Elderly as Percent of Population

2012: 20.4

2062: 31.4

UNITED STATES

Population

2012: 310,384,000

2062: 421,050,000

Life Expectancy

2012: 78.8

2062: 84.6

Elderly as Percent of Population

2012: 13

2062: 21.9

JAPAN

Population

2012: 126,536,000

2062: 103,241,000

Life Expectancy

2012: 83.7

2062: 88.9

Elderly as Percent of Population

2012: 23

2062: 35

Profile: Japan Land of the aging son

Japan, an economic powerhouse late in the last century, is a shadow of its former self. Because of a low birthrate and increased longevity, its population in the past 50 years has shriveled 18 percent. The workforce has dwindled as much as 36 percent, stalling economic growth. Japan’s GDP of $7.1 trillion is a pittance compared with China’s $89 trillion (although China now faces its own aging crisis).

Japan’s demographic shift has triggered dramatic changes. The country’s erstwhile tradition of cradle-to-grave employment, with people working for one company for an entire career, has been phased out in favor of a Western-style meritocracy where jobs, promotions, and wages are linked to performance. High-paid senior executives have been encouraged to retire earlier or work part-time, creating new jobs at better pay for younger generations. Increased tax revenues ease social service burdens, enabling humane eldercare.

With higher wages and greater opportunity, Japanese women have ever more power in the workplace. Flextime and extended maternity leave, European-style child care, and use of fertility aids have helped nudge the birthrate back up. The population, once in free fall, is finally just short of replacing itself.

In Tokyo, still one of the world’s largest cities with nearly 39 million people, chains of senior living facilities cater to a huge but active and healthy elderly population. Robots patrol hallways and do menial tasks such as housekeeping, distributing medications, helping residents dress, and ferrying them to doctors’ appointments. They even perform minor surgeries. Automated vehicles have restored some of the elderly’s lost mobility. Anti-Alzheimer’s drugs have drastically improved the quality of life for many.

Spurred by a series of nuclear-power mishaps, starting with 2011’s disaster at Fukushima, large-scale solar and wind plants now dot the country.

What They Were Saying 50 Years Ago… “The traditional extended family is no longer the norm. Younger Japanese are unwilling to take care of their family, and when they get married, they choose someone who won’t come with that kind of baggage—which adds to a ticking time bomb.” —Julian Chapple, Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan

Fertility Rate is the average number of children born to a woman in a given country. Fertility rate is like Goldilocks’s porridge: It has to be just right (approximately 2.1) to generate a robust and self-sustaining population. Too high and you get a youth bulge that can’t be absorbed into the economy. Too low and the shrinking workforce slows economic growth to a crawl.

Next Page: 2062 State of the Environment

2062 STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

To feed a hungry population of 9 billion people, the total production of grains, meat, vegetables, and dairy products has increased 70 percent in the past 50 years. Consumption of water for agriculture—which constitutes more than 90 percent of global water use—has increased 19 percent. Despite that long record of success, agricultural production is stressed by floods, deforestation, drought, urbanization (land-devouring cities), and a growing appetite for resource-intensive meat. More than 4 billion people live in areas at risk of water shortages. The map below illustrates the top threats to agricultural production.

Clean Energy in ChargeEnergy sources that generate the world’s electricity*

* From a best-case scenario prepared by the International Energy Agency, a nonprofit research group whose members hail from 28 countries. Under this scenario, carbon emissions are cut 50 percent from 2012 levels.

Going Under

More than 150 million people worldwide are at risk from rising sea levels and extreme storms that cause coastal flooding. Overall, sea level is some 35 centimeters (14 inches) higher than it was in 2012. The most vulnerable major cities include Mumbai, India; Guangzhou, China; and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. United States cities at risk include Miami, New York, and New Orleans. Globally, flooding due to climate change threatens to exact a $35 trillion economic toll by the 2070s.

High Cost of Meat

With rising incomes, meat consumption has increased 73 percent over the past 50 years. But a beefy diet exacts an environmental toll: Cows consume vastly more water and produce far more greenhouse gases than crop foods.

Cubic meters of water (264 gallons) consumed to produce one ton of food:Vegetables: 300Nuts: 9,000Beef: 15,400

Global meat consumption in 2012: 270 million tonsGlobal meat consumption in 2062: 470 million tonsProportion of global greenhouse gases produced by meat production (2062): 70%

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Technology proved crucial for controlling greenhouse-gas emissions starting in the 2020s. Installed at plants that produce iron, steel, pulp, paper, chemicals, and cement, CCS collects carbon gas, concentrates it, and pumps it underground for permanent storage in natural geologic formations. Despite many early fears, very little CO2 has leaked out from those storehouses.

Global Footprint is the size of human impact on Earth’s natural resources. In the past 50 years, thanks to education and technology, more than 2 billion people joined the middle class, swelling the human footprint nearly 50 percent. At the same time, millions of acres of cropland have been devoured by population growth and by persistent drought in China and India. But improvements in agriculture have opened up millions of acres of flourishing new cropland in Africa and Brazil.

Next Page: New World Dynamos

NEW WORLD DYNAMOS

China and the United States still have not been dethroned, but much of the world’s economic might now resides with Brazil, India, Mexico, Indonesia, and Turkey. Their rise in status has been driven by young labor forces, investments in education and technology, and thriving middle classes with money to burn. Per capita income in those nations has skyrocketed, raising the standard of living to unprecedented heights but creating ravenous new demand for energy and natural resources.

Full admittance into the European Union four decades ago solidified Turkey’s position as an economic powerhouse and global player, making it a beacon of modernization for the Middle East. Today this Muslim nation holds the same vital economic role it once did for hundreds of years as the seat of the Ottoman Empire.

Capitalizing on its location on the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, Turkey continues to benefit from a huge influx of foreign investments. It is a transportation hub for oil and gas from neighboring Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Iraq, as well as a crucial launching pad for the construction industry throughout Russia, Asia, and Africa. Turkey has also emerged as a leading shipbuilder and a major manufacturer and distributor of heavy consumer goods, including automobiles, home appliances, and refrigerators. Over the past half century, the nation’s capital, Ankara, has transformed from a sleepy provincial town into a cosmopolitan city, while Istanbul, long a sophisticated tourist mecca and industrial center, has grown into a megacity of 20 million situated at the crossroads of Europe and Asia.

Shaking off the political convulsions of the late 2010s and 2020s, Turkey made smart investments in education. Its cohort of young, educated workers grew by nearly 20 percent in the first three decades of the 21st century, delivering a demographic dividend that continues to stoke economic engines.

BOOM ECONOMIES

INDONESIA

Per Capita Income

2005: $3,702

2062: $38,800

Gross Domestic Product

2009: $354 billion

2062: $5.22 trillion

Annual GDP Growth Rate

2009-2062: 4.8%

MEXICO

Per Capita Income

2005: $9,939

2062: $63,300

Gross Domestic Product

2009: $866 billion

2062: $9.46 trillion

Annual GDP Growth Rate

2009-2062: 4.3%

INDIA

Per Capita Income

2005: $3,224

2062: $36,250

Gross Domestic Product

2009: $1.065 trillion

2062: $30.61 trillion

Annual GDP Growth Rate

2009-2062: 5.9%

What they were saying 50 years ago… “A substantial number of people over 65 in Japan, the United States, and Europe will go abroad to work because that’s where their skills will still be valued and in demand, and their retirement money will go further. Property developers in Mexico and Tunisia, like those in Florida and Arizona, are beginning to create turnkey retirement communities for expatriates.” —Jack A. Goldstone, director, Center for Global Policy, George Mason University

Next Page: Surge of the Cities

SURGE OF THE CITIES

The exodus from rural areas, where agriculture is now primarily automated, to cities, where opportunities abound, has continued unabated for decades. Today more than 6 billion people live in cities—about 70 percent of the world’s population, roughly double the proportion of a half century ago. The urban shift is especially pronounced in the East, where Beijing, Manila, and Dhaka (the capital of Bangladesh) have nearly tripled their populations since 2012. Meanwhile, cities in impoverished regions, such as Lagos, Karachi, and Mumbai, are bursting at the seams, putting clean water, sanitation, policing, electricity, and health care in short supply.

Sitting on tremendous oil and natural gas reserves, Nigeria ranks among the top fossil fuel producers on the globe. But after decades of halting political progress, its democracy remains fragile. Behind the scenes, Nigeria continues to be dominated by oil-rich despots and military strongmen. The nation still feels the effects of the collapse of fishing and farming in its northern regions due to climate change in the 2030s and 2040s, which raised food prices and displaced millions, sending them fleeing into cities in search of better wages.

In Lagos, a sprawling city of 39 million, ostentatious mansions sit next to teeming slums. The dilapidated roads are congested, and refuse collection is sporadic at best. A lack of adequate sanitation and health care has led to recurring epidemics of cholera, malaria, typhoid fever, hepatitis, yellow fever, and aids. A high birthrate has translated into a population of more than 400 million people, half of whom are under the age of 24. Unemployment and civil unrest are rife, fueled by lack of access to education, persistent poverty, and long-simmering religious tensions between northern Muslims and the relatively affluent southern Christian majority. Robberies, assaults, extortion, and murder are facts of life. Piracy off the coast of Nigeria is rampant as smugglers transport heroin, electronic devices, and electronic waste from Southeast Asia.

But there are bright spots. Over the past 50 years, life expectancy has climbed, the infant mortality rate has dropped by 67 percent, and a once overwhelming fertility rate is coming under control. The exploding population has stoked the economy and created a relatively large, politically influential middle class, which has contributed to a recent improvement in political stability.

Infant mortality rate refers to how many infants die per 1,000 born. It is a critical indication of a nation’s overall health. In 2062 Afghanistan has among the worst rates (51), while Singapore ranks among the best (2). The United States’ rate is 4. Admirably, in the past 50 years the world’s average infant mortality rate has fallen from 42 to 18.

What they were saying 50 years ago… “Nigeria is going to become the place in Africa. The rising middle class has an interest in a stable investment environment and will put pressure on the government to get its act together and enforce anticorruption measures.” —Jennifer Cooke, director, Africa Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies

A warming climate largely eliminated summertime sea ice along the Arctic coasts, exposing vast fossil fuel reserves. The Arctic may hold 22 percent of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil and natural gas resources. Canada, Russia, Greenland, Norway, and the United States have all prospered. Canada and Norway are among the world’s five fastest-growing nations (alongside Iceland, India, and the United States). Although mounting worldwide energy demand continues to stress the environment, it has powered large-scale development of renewable energy.

Profile: Canada Melting ice, liquid riches

It’s hard to remember that Canada’s vast Arctic regions were largely uninhabitable 50 years ago. Melting ice has liberated immense oil and natural gas reserves. Tankers and container ships move freely through shipping lanes—once treacherous with ice—between Europe and the Far East. The energy bonanza has spawned Wild West–style boomtowns in the Arctic Circle. The city of Churchill and deepwater ports accommodate ship traffic in agricultural and trade goods, while the Bathurst Inlet serves the diamond mines in the Northwest Territories.

The once sparsely populated Nunavut Territory, controlled by the native Inuit people, has undergone rapid economic and population growth. The infusion of petrodollars has trans- formed the previously impoverished Inuits into North American sheikhs.

Although 25 percent of Canada’s population—roughly 10 million people—is over the age of 60, the population has increased 30 percent in the past 50 years due to an influx of immigrants from Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The country presciently established guest-worker programs and recruited heavily among the millions of refugees displaced by drought and heat waves in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia to fill jobs on the new frontier.

What They Were Saying 50 Years Ago… “Canada is a country that has a sound immigration policy, dignity for aboriginal people, good democratic institutions, and a liberal trade policy codified into law. It is well-positioned in a world where globalized business is the norm.” —Laurence C. Smith, author, The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future